Essays

Here's a list of some of my work on Basque dance. I wrote most of these essays while participating in the Tutorial Ph.D. in Basque Studies (Anthropology) at the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The Cavalcade of Luzaide, Nafarroa and Benafarroa - This is a descriptive essay about the Cavalcade characteristic of Benafarroa and Luzaide. It describes the characters, order of the procession and dances.

Transcending Boundaries: Envisioning Basque Shamanism - This essay focuses on Basque folk traditions from two regions: Lapurdi and the Baztan Valley of Nafarroa. The costumes of the Kottilun Gorria from Lapurdi and the Yoaldunak from Ituren and Zubieta are analyzed under the rubric of shamanism as set forth by Mircea Eliade.

Dance as a Window to Cultural Understanding: The Development of Dance Studies and Dance Among Basques with a Review of the Literature
This essay reviews the literature of dance in general and also that of dance among Basques. Here I chart the territory in which I will situate my own work on Basque dance.

Published Articles:

Moving Emblems: Basque Dance and Symbolic Ethnicity in The Basque Diaspora, The Diáspora Vasca. Edited by William A. Douglass, Carmelo Urza, Linda White, and Joseba Zulaika. Reno: Basque Studies Program, 1999. pp.249-273.

Dancing into the Past in Faces. March 1998. pp.22-25.

Inscribing the Other: Orientalism and the Textual Construction of Basques in Anglophone Travel Literature - This essay examines the ways in which alterity is produced textually. Because of the Basques' status as Europe's "mystery people," they are particularly vulnerable to being "orientalized" or becoming inscribed as the autochthonous Other. The role of dance as an embodied activity and how it is used strategically in Orientalist discourse is explored. Published in the Journal of the Society of Basque Studies in America. Volume XXI - Year 2001. pp. 35-47.

Four Weddings and Some Funerals: Basque Dance in Contemporary Rites of Passage - This essay explores the role of dance in marriage and funeral ceremonies in Basque communities of the homeland and the diaspora. Anthropologists have long been interested in rituals associated with life's transitional moments including marriage and death, but these constructed performances are not just relics of the remote past or practices of primitive cultures. As society has developed and become more secular, some ritual elements and symbols have lost significance and disappeared; these are sometimes replaced by others to better serve the needs of a community. Traditional dance can be a powerful symbol of identity among Basques and over the last few decades we have seen that it has often been incorporated into these ceremonial rites of passage. Through the use of several examples I will illustrate ways in which identity is asserted through ceremonial dance in a modern ritual context. To be published in 2003 Tinta Annex: Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Graduate Conference on Lusophone and Hispanic Literature and Culture, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Santa Barbara.

To the Beat of a Different Drum: Basque Dance in the Homeland and in the Diaspora. Doctoral Dissertation. 2005.

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